Does X-Plane Australia Complete Photoreal Scenery work on Mac in X-Plane 12?

A couple of things to check (Mac + XP12 + older photoreal packs)

The short version: yes, most “Australia Complete Photoreal” style scenery can work on macOS, but there are a few common gotchas in X‑Plane 12 that make it look like “nothing happened” even though it’s installed and listed in scenery_packs.ini.

1) Confirm it’s actually loading (X‑Plane log will tell you)
Before changing anything, load a flight somewhere you’re sure is covered (e.g., near a major city), then quit X‑Plane and open:
X-Plane 12/Log.txt

Search for the scenery pack name and also for words like:
SCENERY_PACK
Custom Scenery
ERROR
WARNING

If X‑Plane is skipping it (bad folder name, missing files, etc.) the reason is usually written right there.

2) Make sure you’re looking at the right “difference”
Photoreal scenery usually only replaces the ground textures. It won’t change buildings, autogen density, airports, roads, etc. In XP12, with modern lighting/vegetation, it can be subtle unless you’re at low altitude and in an area where the ortho is obvious (coastlines, farmland patterns, etc.).

Also, XP12’s default terrain can still look “photo-ish” in some regions, so it’s easy to think the ortho isn’t active when it is.

3) Scenery order in scenery_packs.ini (very common)
In X‑Plane, ortho/photo scenery generally needs to sit below airports but above meshes (if any), otherwise it can be covered by something else.

Open:
X-Plane 12/Custom Scenery/scenery_packs.ini

Typical order is:

1. Airports at the top (anything with airports)
2. Overlays next (if the package includes “overlay” folders)
3. Photo/ortho scenery next
4. Meshes at the bottom (HD Mesh, UHD Mesh, etc.)

If the Australia pack includes separate folders (for example an “overlay” and one or more “terrain/ortho” folders), the overlay should be above the ortho.

4) Folder nesting / wrong folder level (VERY common with zipped scenery)
On Mac especially, it’s easy to end up with an extra folder level. X‑Plane expects the scenery pack folder to contain things like:
Earth nav data
terrain
textures
library.txt

So you want something like:
Custom Scenery/Australia Photoreal/Earth nav data/...

Not:
Custom Scenery/Australia Photoreal/Australia Photoreal/Earth nav data/...

If it’s nested one level too deep, it may still “show up” in the .ini after you ran X‑Plane, but it won’t actually draw correctly.

5) Check you didn’t install it as a “library” by accident
Some downloads on sites get labeled scenery but are actually libraries or overlays. If the folder only has a library.txt and no Earth nav data tiles, you won’t see ground changes—because it isn’t a photoreal tile set.

6) macOS quarantine / blocked files (less common, but real)
If the download came from the internet, macOS can mark files with a quarantine attribute. It usually affects apps/plugins more than scenery textures, but if you see odd “could not load” messages in Log.txt, it’s worth mentioning.

A few quick questions so I can point you to the exact fix

• Which exact Mac and macOS version are you on, and which X‑Plane 12 version?
• What’s the exact folder name(s) you added under Custom Scenery (and do they contain Earth nav data)?
• Can you paste the relevant section of your scenery_packs.ini showing the Australia entries?
• Also paste any lines from Log.txt that mention that scenery (or any ERROR/WARNING near the end of the log).

Once I see your .ini order + the folder structure (and what Log.txt says), we can usually get this sorted in one pass.